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October 7, 2008

A Green Give Away!

It seems all I need to do to get you all talkin' is post about politics or personal security emergencies!

Seriously, I am just glad to know there are more than 3 of you out there because I'd like to have a little Give Away today!

Before I tell you what it is though I have a little tree-huggin' to do.

Many months ago I received an email that changed the way our family looks at plastic. We've all heard about the wildlife that suffers innocently from our plastic waste. And sadly, we seem to become immune to the pictures.

But, did you know:

* Each year, an estimated 500 billionto 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That comes out to over one million per minute with billions ending up as litter each year.* According to the EPA, over 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps are consumed in the U.S. each year.* According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually. (Estimated cost to retailers is $4 billion. Who do you think they pass that cost on to?)* According to the industry publication Modern Plastics, Taiwan consumes 20 billion bags a year—900 per person.* According to Australia’s Department of Environment, Australians consume 6.9 billion plastic bags each year—326 per person. An estimated .7% or 49,600,000 end up as litter each year.* Plastic bags don’t biodegrade, they photodegrade—breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food web when animals accidentally ingest. Which we in turn digest.* According to David Barnes, a marine scientist with the British Antarctic Survey, plastic bags have gone "from being rare in the late 80s and early 90s to being almost everywhere from Spitsbergen 78° North [latitude] to Falklands 51° South [latitude]. Wow. Read that one again..

What can we do about it? Here are a few ideas:

* In 2001, Ireland consumed 1.2 billion plastic bags, or 316 per person. An extremely successful plastic bag consumption tax, or PlasTax, introduced in 2002 reduced consumption by 90%. Approximately 18,000,000 liters of oil used to make the bags have been saved due to this reduced production. Maybe governments around the world should consider implementing similar measures.* July 2003, ReusableBags.com goes live, advancing the mainstream adoption of reusable shopping bags.

Tell me what you think of this Tree Huggin' idea in a comment to be entered. I will randomly choose a winner of all three bags on Thursday evening. Too, if you're the recycling kind already they have AWESOME metal water bottles. Check them out here: http://www.reusablebags.com/

Love Note to my Big Shooter: Thanks for lovin' me even when I get all...you know, Green.

20 comments:

I have ordered from reusable bags, we have the stainless steel water bottles by klean kanteen....bye bye plastic!.....and 2 reisenthel backpacks that are very cool. I love this website. So yes we are a recycling family. What a wonderful give away and eye opener to many.....thanks!

This is something I keep meanin' to do...ya know, I think of it at the oddest times and never actually do it. We do recycle but they won't take the plastic bags here. Paige is so into recycling that she made me call Quaker a few weeks ago b/c they don't have "the triangle" on their boxes of granola bars so we were fighting about whether it could go in the recycling box or not(fwiw - they said it was because they have color on the boxes and some states won't recycle color??). I would love to get started with reusable bags!! Good giveaway :)

Well I recycle all my plastic bags in my home- use them as trash bags, peel potatoes in them, put them in my vehicles for trash bags...But I would use the shopping bags if I had them! I have re-filled my water bottles for years. Would love the stainless steel ones!Wow are you getting famous??Mamacita

I love this idea! My boys take their water for lunch in stainless steel, but the thermoses are getting quite banged up after a couple of years... I'll check out the link - just this morning I was thinking we could use some new ones.

You know me and bags! I have to comment on this one. We also use our plastic bags everywhere...in the van, trash can liners, peel potatoes in them, etc. We could do much better at recycling though! Thanks for the reminder!Sashi

I use the reusable bags most of the time these days. Every now and then I get the plastic ones. They have recycle boxes for them at pretty much all grocery stores and Wal-Mart.

FYI--not to ruffle feathers, but using them as trash bags and stuff like that still puts them in the landfills. That being said, I reuse some of them in the same way. I have tried to reduce the ways I use them.

We have also cut the ziploc bags down around here. The kids take their lunch in reusable containers. Sometimes they use foil, too, which is recyclable. We still use ziploc for some things, but not everything, all the time, like we used to.

Oh, I love these bags! We have a few reusable bags that we try to take with us, and we always ask for paper at the grocery store. However, it's nearly impossible to completely eliminate the receipt of plastic bags from the Big Box stores as it stands; we just save them and use them for trash in the little trash cans :-)

I'm going to keep it real and say that I will probably still use plastic bags. My coworker actually sent me an email with similar information, and truly, I do things out of convenience and laziness, and using plastic bags is just more convenient.

While I have always loved nature, the wacky-left leanings of some extreme environmentalists had dissuaded me from being more of a conservationist. But I decided to get a little greener myself, and even began to recycle, after listening to the "God is Green" series from Mars Hill (Rob Bell's church). My family consumes a ton of groceries, and plastic bags still abound. Sign me up!

I think everything with balance. You can go overboard with the whole "green" thing. I will do what I can do. Getting rid of plastic bags is one of those things. I bought one bag, but keep forgetting it at home because I'm an idiot. I intend to buy more, but if you give me one, I will be able to buy less. Thanks.

I found you via Leslie's blog and I am liking what I'm reading :) My family, er ME, has been making some huge changes in our lives...going more and more green!! We've been recyling for years, but now we are making major food changes! My hubby made a comment about me eventually making our underwear out of tree bark! Not so much, I'm sure! Anyway, I just bought 3 reusable bags Sunday at Whole Foods...the kind that say "I used to be a plastic bottle!" I am planning on just buying a few per month until I have 8-10, so WINNING one would be AWESOME!! thanks!

I'm the Recycling Chair at my daughter's school, and I have a little blurb in their PTA Press every two weeks about what we can do to help the environment. Would you mind if I copied some of this information for our next addition? People really need to see this info so we will stop using these terrible things!

I recycle all my plastic bags, too, especially for trash. And when my little one gets out of diapers (which he is a pro at right now, I'd just prefer he then put on underwear) I will be much more conscious of asking for paper...

...and acquiring one of these beautiful bags! We do a lot of run-up-to-the-local-dairy-store-for-bread-milk-and-eggs so this would be absolutely perfect. Cool giveaway!